Here’s a list of 2015 and 2016 University of Denver hockey recruits. The five 2015 guys deserve more mention, more information, and I hope to add that in the next week.

Dylan Gambrell, F, Bonney Lake, Wash.
— Played for Angelo Ricci and the Colorado Thunderbirds, now with Dubuque of USHL. Member of USA’s World Junior A Challenge Team that won gold in the fall, and played in USHL Top Prospects Game. Committed to DU and scheduled to sign this spring.

Blake Hillman, D, Elk River, Minn.
— Playing his second year at Dubuque of USHL and joined Gabrell at USHL Top Prospects Game. Committed to DU and scheduled to sign this pring.

Logan O’Connor, F, Calgary, Alberta
— Captain of Sioux Falls of the USHL, his second year there. Pegged as a very good four-year player. Signed his NLI with DU last fall.

Jarid Lukosevicius, F, Squamish, B.C.
— In his second year with the Powell River Kings of BCHL, currently third among league scorers. Signed his NLI with DU last fall.

Troy Terry, F, Highlands Ranch
— Played for Angelo Ricci’s U16 Colorado Thunderbirds and now with the USNDP, doing very well. On track to accelerate and join DU this fall.

DU head coach Jim Montgomery said there were three potential players who could get drafted. I was able to get a hold of one player but ran into issues with the other two. One of them was on a family vacation in Belize and Danton Heinen had a Canadian number.

So I ran around the office trying to use all the phones that had international calling but none of them worked. Maybe I had a wrong number or maybe I was calling Canada wrong but three different phones didn’t work.

I haven’t seen an official announcement from the league, but the Brett Hull Award goes to the BCHL’s points leader, and Smith’s 83 points were matched by Victoria’s Myles Fitzgerald, a fellow 20-year-old who has committed to Bemidji State. Fitzgerald produced 27 goals and 56 assists.

Other Brett Hull Award winners include former DU standouts Tyler Bozak (2007) and Beau Bennett (2010), who are currently playing for the Toronto Maple Leafs and Pittsburgh Penguins, respectively. Brett Hull racked up a league-record 188 points in 1984.

Smith, who attended Arapahoe High in Centennial and admittedly is a family friend, was captain of the 2010 Colorado Thunderbirds’ U16 team that won the state’s first Tier I, triple-A national championship. He previously played for Cedar Rapids and Chicago of the United States Hockey League, under the guidance of DU and the former staff led by George Gwozdecky, who was fired April 1.

I got a few one-on-one minutes with Colorado State athletic director Jack Graham on Tuesday and asked him about how fundraising was going for the on-campus football stadium project.

Graham declined to reveal any numbers but said fundraising is “making great progress.”

“After getting organized, we’ve been at this for about seven months now,” Graham said. “It’s been a relatively small number of people who have supported athletics over the decades at Colorado State. So we’ve had to just go out there and meet people.

The University of Denver hockey team began the season ranked outside the USA Today/USA Hockey Magazine poll for the first time since 2001. But after sweeping Merrimack with 1-0 and 4-0 shutouts to begin the season, the Pioneers are back inside the top 15. They came in 12th this week and are also 12th in the U.S. College Hockey Online poll.

Hoops schedule set. The University of Denver finalized the schedule for the men’s basketball team, and the Pioneers will open with a tough stretch: at California on Nov. 12, home vs. Stanford on Nov. 17, then to the Great Alaska Shootout to face Ivy League champion Harvard on Thanksgiving night.

Overall, the Pioneers will play six NCAA Tournament teams, including Cal and Harvard, and another nine that made the NIT.

“We have made our schedule more and more demanding each season that we’ve been here,” said DU coach Joe Scott. “This year, we are challenging ourselves right from the beginning against two Pac-12 teams and then traveling to the Great Alaska Shootout. We will be tested early, often and throughout our nonconference schedule.”

Hockey tickets. The Pioneers announced single-game hockey tickets will go on sale Friday at 9 a.m.

DU has a new hockey coach, Jim Montgomery, and a new conference, the National Collegiate Hockey Conference. Tickets are available at DU’s Ritchie Center north box office or on the Pioneers’ website.

DU players listen to their new coach at his April introductory news conference. (Kathyrn Scott Osler, The Denver Post)

My story on Jim Montgomery continuing to settle in as DU’s hockey coach is in the Tuesday paper and here. I was filling in for the vacationing Mike Chambers.

I’m on record that DU’s firing of George Gwozdecky with a year remaining on his contract was misguided and I’m cynical about some of the reasons for the move. I’m far from alone on that, of course. Gwozdecky recently withdrew from consideration for the Alabama-Huntsville job (it was his if he wanted it) and continues to be in the semi-comfortable position of being able to sit out this season and likely be able to select from opportunities for the 2014-15 season.

But yes, it’s time to move on, at least when dealing with the DU program. Montgomery’s background as both a journeyman pro who played parts of six seasons in the NHL and then won two USHL championships as GM and coach of the expansion Dubuque Fighting Saints is impressive.

My story on former CU coach Dan Hawkins, now the rookie head coach of the Canadian Football League’s Montreal Alouettes, is in the Sunday paper and here.

The story touches on the Alouettes’ 1-1 start, with both games against Winnipeg, and after watching Montreal’s home-opener loss to the Blue Bombers on Thursday night, with the TSN feed being carried on ESPN2, it was interesting to contrast the reaction with what we’re used to down here. Video of quarterback Anthony Calvillo’s post-game comments at his locker (“disgusting”) was posted on the team web site, as were comments from other players. And then the team has posted its practice schedule for the week, noting the workouts are open to the public. The Alouettes’ offices are in Olympic Stadium, but they practice at Stade Hebert in St. Leonard and play their games at Percival Molson Stadium on the McGill University campus.

In my many years of covering hockey, I was in Canada often and noted the level of interest in the CFL — yes, it’s on the second tier, and the league often struggles financially, but they care. And care a lot. To many, it’s even bigger than curling — and I’m being serious, because curling is huge. I enjoyed watching CFL games on television up there almost as much as “Corner Gas,” the tremendous, wryly funny sitcom set in Dog River, Saskatchewan, which meant that the good folks were fans of the Saskatchewan Roughriders. The Grey Cup is on my bucket list. I actually like some of the CFL rules better than traditional U.S. rules, especially the allowing of forward motion at the snap, which essentially gives receivers a running start before the snap and before they reach the line of scrimmage.

Through two games, the Alouettes’ leading rushers are Noel Devine (14 carries, 65 yards), a second-year pro from West Virginia; and Brandon Whitaker (10-33), in his fifth season from Baylor. Calvillo, the veteran who was the CFL’s first-team all-star in 2012, is 36-63, for 385 yards and two touchdowns, with three interceptions. His top receiver has been slotback S.J. Green, from South Florida, with eight catches for 150 yards and both of the passing touchdowns. The Alouettes’ top tackler has been 5-9 strong-side linebacker Chip Cox, from Ohio U., with 14 tackles.

Hawkins’ staff is a mix of newcomers to the Canadian game and veterans: Read more…

University of Denver athletic director Peg Bradley-Doppes spoke to The Denver Post for the first time since her April 1 firing of hockey coach George Gwozdecky, who had qualified for eight of the last 10 NCAA Tournaments (and last six consecutively) and is the country’s only coach to win 20 games in each of the past 12 seasons.

(Colleague Terry Frei has written a column about the AD and Gwozdecky, and I will link it here when it posts.)

Gwozdecky also had what was considered the country’s best hockey team in 2009-10, when the Pioneers (27-7-4 before losing last three) won the WCHA regular-season title before flaming out in the first round of the NCAA Tournament against RIT; and DU was runner-up in the league playoffs in 2009, 2011 and 2012, after winning the Broadmoor Trophy in 2008.

I asked her about a sentence in her April 1 release, which said Gwozdecky had his “fair share of success … in the middle of the previous decade.”

Monday, Bradley-Doppes said: “I did not mean it derogatory. I believe Coach Gwozdecky did a great here at DU. I told him that. He ran a good program with great young men and we had success. Our aspirations as an institution that are clearly outlined with our head coaches (include) we aspire to be in the hunt for the Frozen Four year-in, year-out . . . I did not mean it any way to be derogatory, certainly not to our student-athletes, certainly not to our coaches. But rather, the expectation of our programs are higher.”

OK, so the goal is get to the Frozen Four. Gwozdecky was 11-10 in the NCAA Tournament, but 1-6 in the past six years. DU went 8-0 to win the 2004 and 2005 titles.

He was not fired over his lack of success, although being in the “hunt” for the Frozen Four and continually flaming out early got old. Bradley-Doppes admitted that the failure to agree on a contract extension also got old, although we know Gwozdecky was not asking for the moon. He might have been insulted by asking to take a decrease in pay, perhaps leading to the impasse.

Given all that, I was tipped off by a former DU defenseman that several front-runners were scared to accept the challenge, afraid of the challenge to inherit a team that has lost six underclassmen to NHL deals in a little more than a year and work with an AD who might take making the NCAA Tournament for granted (16 of 59 teams make it).

“There was an awful lot of interest in this position, so if the expectation of the university made anyone feel uncomfortable, it wasn’t obvious,” Bradley-Doppes said. “We had incredible interest in this position from head coaches, associate head coaches in junior, pro and collegiate. It’s a testimony to the rich, tradition of hockey.”

I had a nice phone conversation with former DU hockey coach George Gwozdecky, who sounds energized about his next challenge. Not everything we talked about was fit to print, but the following is fair game:

— Gwozdecky said he encouraged his three assistants at DU — associate head coach Steve Miller, No. 2 assistant David Lassonde and director of hockey operations David Tenzer — to accept being retained by new coach Jim Montgomery. “Jim obviously recognized that Steve and David are two of the best guys at what they do in the country, and the program needs them,” Gwozdecky said. “One-hundred percent, I supported them in staying.” That’s not to say Gwozdecky won’t eventually lure them away …

— Gwozdecky, who has another year left on his contract at DU, has not spoken to athletic directors or others affiliated with Ohio State, Maine or Connecticut, each with head hockey-coaching vacancies, but he admitted all three jobs are very attractive. Osiecki was ousted Monday after compiling a 46-50-16 record in three years for the Buckeyes, who are moving to the Big Ten Hockey Conference next season. Tim Whitehead was released from Maine after 12 years. And UConn, which has seemingly not been as interested in hockey as its basketball teams, is moving to Hockey East on the heels of a 19-14-4 season (14-10-3 Atlantic Hockey Association). The Huskies have fielded a team since 1960 but have won 20 games just twice, and not since 1998-99. “When UConn does things it’s in a full, complete way, and that could be a good up-and-coming program, a great addition to Hockey East,” Gwozdecky said.

— Gwozdecky might just collect his DU paychecks for a year before returning to the bench, but he reiterated he will be back. He said his contract states that if he takes another job before his current one expires, he will only be paid the lesser difference by DU. My records have his annual salary of around $221,000, so if he takes the job at big-money OSU, DU will be off the hook.

New DU hockey coach Jim Montgomery will return to Dubuque, Iowa, and lead his Dubuque Fighting Saints into a USHL Eastern Conference semifinal series against the Muskegon Lunmberjacks. The five-game series begins Wednesday in Dubuque. Montgomery, 43, said he will return to Denver and begin work two days after the Saints are eliminated or win the Clark Cup playoffs as league champions. The latest the finals could go is May 22.

Dubuque has a USHL-best 45-11-8 record, so, as usual, Steve Miller, David Lassonde and David Tenzer are running things for the Pioneers. George Gwozdecky’s former support staff will keep the ship afloat — obviously a huge reason why Montgomery retained those guys.

Make no mistake, DU has huge holes to fill. The Pioneers finished the season with just 21 players, including 18 forwards and defensemen, and sophomore goalie Juho Olkinuora (Winnipeg Jets), sophomore defenseman Scott Mayfield (New York Islanders) and junior center Nick Shore (Los Angeles Kings) have signed NHL deals since Gwozdecky was axed April 1. Four seniors — forwrds Shawn Ostrow and Chris Knowlton, defenseman Paul Phillips and goalie Adam Murray — have expired eligibility, so DU only has 14 scheduled returning players. Most of them attended Montgomery’s press conference today.

“Looking at the chairs, we might not even have 20 players next year, which is insane,” DU sophomore forward Daniel Doremus said, after being asked about losing six players — including four sophomores — to NHL deals in a little more than a year. “(But) you don’t need those guys to win championships. Look at Yale (which won the national championship Saturday). They had just a handful of (top NHL prospects) maybe. If you come together, you can do a lot of things. I’m not worried about that. I’m excited about next week, beginning training and a relationship with the new coach.”

Coach Miller, who served as associate head coach under Gwozdecky, told me today that recruiting has stabilized. With Phillips and Mayfield gone, DU can’t afford to lose U.S. 18-under defensemen Will Butcher and Gage Ausmus. Both are currently in Russia playing for the red, white and blue in the Under-18 World Championship. Ausmus has reportedly de-committed but Miller said he was contacted last week and is optimistic he will embrace Montgomery. Miller said nothing has changed with Butcher.

DU could be fine at D next season, with goalie Sam “Great” Brittain scheduled to have the job by himself as a senior. Brittain won the Keith Magnuson Award as DU’s best defensive player as a freshman, and reconstructive knee surgery before his sophomore season helped Olkinuora take over the job this past season.

“We’re ready to move on. I’m excited about (next) year,” Brittain told me. “Coming back from that injury, they said it always takes a year and a half, two years, so that’s underneath the bubble of recovery. So for me, it’s all about making sure I’m ready for (next) year.”

I briefly talked to freshman center Quentin Shore, Nick’s younger brother. Nick signed with the Kings the same day the job was offered to Montgomery, and there was no communication between the two.

“Nick’s decision was not based on who our coach was. I don’t think George leaving or Jim coming in had any weight,” Quentin said.

Quentin and the rest of his teammates, like most alumni and program supports (and media), will miss Gwozdecky, but are enthusiastic about the seemingly hard-nosed Montgomery, who has built a giant in Dubuque and has experience as an NHL player and NCAA assistant coach.

“Big shock for all of us. I definitely didn’t see it coming,” Quentin said. “Coach Gwozdecky did an unbelievable job of preparing us to win here. I have no doubts that our new coach, Coach Montgomery, will come in and continue that tradition.”

I’ll have a retooled story in the morning paper and posted online in the overnight cycle, too. That differs slightly, cutting out some of the news conference quotes that will be old by morning and adding some comments from my brief one-on-one talk with Gwozdecky after the news conference.

Most significantly, Gwozdecky talked a little more about what he thought of the coaching staff’s work in this, his final season.

New Hampshire head coach Dick Umile, left, is congratulated by assistant coach David Lassonde after a win.

If Denver wants George Gwozdecky’s successor to be someone familiar with the tradition-rich program, the following five ex-Pioneers players and coaches will likely have preliminary conversations with the search committee:

1. Mike Corbett, Air Force associate head coach — Former Frank Serratore-recruited DU defenseman has been Serratore’s right-hand man since 2003, helping lead the Falcons to five NCAA Tournaments in the past seven years. Corbett, 41, played his final three seasons for Gwozdecky (1994-97) and is known as an excellent recruiter and player’s coach who demands structure and discipline. He was married and raised a child while at DU.

MANCHESTER, N.H. – If DU wins tonight against the University of New Hampshire, they’ll have to play another team from around these parts tomorrow night, as U-Mass Lowell crushed Wisconsin here just now, 6-1 to advance to the Final 8 of the NCAA hockey tournament.
Here are the Pioneers’ lines for the game tonight:

Services for Dr. George Gwozdecky, father of DU hockey coach George Gwozdecky, were today in Thunder Bay, Ontario. Dr. Gwozdecky died peacefully Saturday at age 93, with Coach Gwozdecky by his side. Coach Gwozdecky is scheduled to return to Colorado on Thursday night and rejoin the Pioneers before they host rival Colorado College at Magness Arena on Friday to begin a home-and-home series.

On Monday, former DU forward Joe Casey died in Jackson Hole, Wyo. He was 37. Cause of death has not yet been determined, but the captain of the local senior-A hockey team — who was in good shape — suffered from the flu or another illness last weekend.

The Pioneers swept the Tigers earlier this season and need just one win or a tie to reclaim the Gold Pan, which meant everything to Casey, a hard-nosed role player who was raised in Colorado Springs.

I knew Joe pretty well, far better than a typical relationship with a DU player. He drank a lot of coffee before games and loved to block shots. He was extremely proud to be the Pioneers’ best shot-blocker, and used to tell me about all the shin pads he cracked from doing the dirty work. He was a rugged outdoorsman, a guy’s guy who was respected by everyone he befriended.

(I got to know Joe before games, seeing him in front of the locker room by the coffee stand. It was the best coffee in the building(s), and although it was there for the players, coaches and officials, Joe encouraged me to take what I wanted because it was otherwise going to waste. We both couldn’t live without our coffee at hockey games.)

Joe wore No. 7 for the Pios and played four seasons, from 1996 to 2000 — the tough years before/during/after DU was homeless while Magness Arena was being built after the DU Arena was torn down. Joe scored 12 goals in 38 games as a senior, when the Pioneers went 16-23-2 in what I believe was the third season at Magness Arena. Recruiting had taken a huge hit because the visiting blue-chippers didn’t see much to appreciate while the Pioneers played in front of dull crowds at McNichols Sports Arena, Denver Coliseum, the Air Force Academy and World Arena. Tough times, but Joe was having a blast, completing his dream of playing college hockey.

He went north after college to Jackson Hole, joining its senior-A team, and according to hockeydb.com, he played one season in the Central Hockey League, in 2006-07 for the Rio Grande Valley Killer Bees. My deepest sympathies to Joe’s family. He was a real beauty.

Meanwhile, Coach Gwozdecky traveled with his hockey team to Duluth, Minn., on Thursday, and then drove to Thunder Bay on Friday when he learned of his father’s illness. Coach Gwozdecky will return to Denver, and the Pioneers’ bench, for the CC series.

I will be covering Friday’s game, and Adrian Dater is scheduled to work Saturday’s game in Colorado Springs.

Please see DU line chart below. The Pioneers have just 11 forwards and six defensemen available, because freshman W Garrett Allen has a finger injury and junior W Jarrod Mermis is on a leave of absence on the heels of his brother’s departure from the team to the London Knights of the Ontario Hockey League. Freshman D Dakota Mermis was apparently unhappy at DU and wanted to make a mid-season change. It appears Jarrod, who has been in the coaching staff’s doghouse for much of the season, is evaluating his options before schools resumes Monday. Of course, nobody wants to see a kid turn down a college education, particularly as a junior. But it is also a shame to see a freshman bail on his commitment to any team and, in this case, leave his NCAA squad high and dry.

DU began the season with just seven D, because junior Wade Bennett was forced to hang ’em up before the season because of nagging injuries.

Hey, we all want to play in the NHL, and the college route isn’t for everybody. But word is Dakota Mermis — who played in all 19 games and had one goal and four points at DU — was a good student but has a history of “not being happy,” and that might stem from the advise he was getting. He joined the U.S. National Development Program in 2010, signing the standard two-year commitment. But after he played 2010-11 for the U17 team, he sought his release, and I hear the departure wasn’t easy or pretty. He joined the USHL’s stacked Green Bay Gamblers last season, playing for former DU assistant Derek Lalonde, and according to sources, he or his advisers often thought he wasn’t treated right.

Just learned tonight’s U.S. Hockey Hall of Fame Game at Magness Arena is sold out. The DU Pioneers attempt to snap an eight-game winless skid (0-5-3) against the sixth-ranked Boston University Terriers (10-5). Should be a good one.

Sophomore Jussi Olkinuora (3-1-3, 1.92 GAA, .936 save percentage) will be between the DU pipes, and 6-foot-5 freshman Matt O’Connor (7-3, 2.22, .931) is starting for BU. Here’s the DU line chart (freshman F Garrett Allen is out with a finger injury and junior Jarrod Mermis remains deep in coach George Gwozdecky’s dog house). Just a one-game weekend here, folks, before the Pioneers return to traditional college hockey next weekend in a two-game set against visiting Cornell.

Terry Frei graduated from Wheat Ridge High School in the Denver area and has degrees in history and journalism from the University of Colorado-Boulder. He worked for the Rocky Mountain News while attending CU and joined the Post staff after graduation. He has also worked at the Oregonian in Portland, Ore., and The Sporting News. His seventh book, March 1939: Before the Madness, was issued in February 2014.